How to Pair Beer with Cheese

Learn how to pair beer with cheese from expert Katherine Kyle in this Howcast video.

Transcript

In general you're looking for a common experience and flavor and style. I would suggest that you choose your cheese first because there's a lot more variety, I guess, you know, in terms of the cheeses. So once you have your cheese, your you then want to think about wha-what what might need that? Real common pairings are say an IPA with blue cheese, or a wheat beer with a chevre? But, even though those are common pairings or suggestions, in terms of pairing beer and cheese there really are no rules.

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You might find a real, you know, nutty cheese to do really well with a nutty beer and that would be an example of, you know, very complimentary styles. But at the same time you might find that getting styles and flavors in contrast to each other actually can bring about this elusive third flavor that makes both the beer and the cheese elevated to something different, where when you're tasting it, you you come to appreciate that beer in a way that you never were before because of the way that it balances against that cheese and the same thing for the cheese.

Again, when pairing beer and cheese you want to look for some commonalities, you don't want anything that's going to absolutely overwhelm the other, but at the same time you do want to look up contrast because there are a lot of different pairings that just are just going to work some kind of flavor magic that are unexpected and that's really part of the fun of pairing beer and cheese.